PRESS FREEDOM

a year ago

Jeff Flake: Trump’s Attacks on the Press Are Stalin-Esque

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on Sunday said that President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press are Stalin-esque, adding that he will be giving a speech this week on the issue to coincide with Trump’s “fake news awards” to be unveiled on Wednesday. “When you reflexively refer to the press as the ‘enemy of the people’ or fake news, that has real damage. It has real damage to our standing in the world,” Flake, a top critic of the president, said on ABC’s This Week. “And I noted how bad it is for a president to take what was popularized by Joseph Stalin—the enemy of the people, to refer to the press.”